All Blog Posts Tagged 'belief' - Think Atheist2016-12-09T18:03:14Zhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blog/feed?tag=belief&xn_auth=noInsightful article from Godless in Dixietag:www.thinkatheist.com,2016-09-01:1982180:BlogPost:16000792016-09-01T13:00:00.000ZA.T. Heisthttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/ATHeist615
<p>I think Neil Carter is right on point in this article. I know, every time in my past that I've come to grips with my disbelief, I wonder how I could ever have believed ridiculous things so easily? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2015/10/09/why-do-intelligent-well-educated-people-still-believe-nonsense/" target="_blank">Why Do Intelligent People Believe Nonsense?</a></p>
<p>I think Neil Carter is right on point in this article. I know, every time in my past that I've come to grips with my disbelief, I wonder how I could ever have believed ridiculous things so easily? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2015/10/09/why-do-intelligent-well-educated-people-still-believe-nonsense/" target="_blank">Why Do Intelligent People Believe Nonsense?</a></p>When a Jehovah's Witness Grows Up to be an Atheisttag:www.thinkatheist.com,2014-05-29:1982180:BlogPost:14615482014-05-29T20:49:47.000ZM.M.J. Gregoryhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MuggleinConverse
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<p>After all this time, all these years, all these degrees of separation - a mere knock guides me to shedded enemies. It was midmorning when a pair of shadows alerted me to some unexpected presences. I think I knew before I knew, my gut clenching beyond the usual spasm of social anxiety.</p>
<p>The blockers of the light lingered and adjusted themselves and finally put knuckle to…</p>
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<p>After all this time, all these years, all these degrees of separation - a mere knock guides me to shedded enemies. It was midmorning when a pair of shadows alerted me to some unexpected presences. I think I knew before I knew, my gut clenching beyond the usual spasm of social anxiety.</p>
<p>The blockers of the light lingered and adjusted themselves and finally put knuckle to wood. I rearranged loose hairs and wished I had showered for the day and briefly considered not answering, but I was already at the door and well...why not? I opened the front door and wedged myself between it and the wall to keep the cats in and the nonsense out.</p>
<p>I had eaten recently but all feeling of fullness fled when my suspicions were confirmed, leaving behind only a tingly vacancy. Jehovah's Witnesses were standing before me. A childhood's worth of memories knocking on strangers' doors and spilling out formulated speeches came back. I did it into my teenage years, but I never got old enough to get the door slammed in my face. I resisted the urge to do so to the man and woman who were beaming at the sight of an open door, an opportunity.</p>
<p><em>I know you weren't expecting us this morning.</em><br/>Little did she know I hold my breath every time there's a knock I don't anticipate.</p>
<p>Living in apartments, Witness sightings are usually limited to random literature in laundry rooms. (Which I always take the time to deposit into recycling bins in hope that the deceased trees will go to better use.)</p>
<p>But here they were, offering a pamphlet and asking a question.<br/><em>Who do you think controls the world?</em></p>
<p>I blanked. What kind of bollocks question is that? Are we talking weather patterns and gravity? Politics and no-fly lists? Who controls the world? What on earth does that mean?</p>
<p>The woman repeated the question as the man thumbed through his Bible. I gaped, trying to find a way out of the carefully set trap. The man asked again as he found the scripture he wanted. I said it would depend on what we're talking about, I needed specifics.</p>
<p>They held up another pamphlet, identical to the one I held in my hand. It had three options. Of course it did. No open ended questions, lead all the way. My preapproved answers were: God, humankind, or someone else.</p>
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<p>Without actually reading the scripture, the man said that the Bible tells us that the Devil is in control. He asked if I agreed, clearly thinking I would.</p>
<p>Instead I told him that I have relatives that are Witnesses, that I grew up in it. (<em>Oh, they are my Sisters! And you will be again too, eh?</em>) I told them that I was an atheist. Back in my door knocking days I think this would have raised an eyebrow, but they took it in stride. Maybe it's a more common response now? I can hope.</p>
<p>He chose the complimentary route and said that most people that identify that way are <em>big thinkers</em> - whatever that means. He asked how I had come to the conclusion. I told them I didn't think much about religion from when I stopped going to meetings as a teenager up until I had kids. (<em>Oh, you have kids!</em> I think he sensed bait.) I said I went looking and didn't find any answers or evidence - not a single reason to believe in a God.</p>
<p>Evidence has always been one of those buzzwords and he latched on to it. <em>Oh, but the evidence of Creation is all around us.</em> I think he meant to gesture to the sky, but it landed on the adjacent building which is highlighted with bird poop-like primer in anticipation of an upcoming paint job.</p>
<p>I think he could tell that wasn't a winning strategy, so he went back to the scent he had picked up earlier. <em>Didn't you think having your babies</em> (he held out his hands to mimic a swollen pregnant belly - his manner was really quite endearing), <em>don't you think your children are a miracle? </em></p>
<p>I smiled. I love Boots and Bubba. In my life, in my everyday, they are extraordinary. But inexplicable by natural or scientific laws they are not. I shook my head and simply answered no. This brought the woman back into the conversation, but not with words. She gasped abhorrently. A mother unwilling to call her children miracles was simply too much. She was only in the corner of my eye, but I saw the shocked expression she wore. It had settled by the time my head turned.</p>
<p>The man smiled, told me his name, asked mine, and shook my hand. The woman offered her name and hand. They encouraged me to take a look at the pamphlet and went on their way.</p>
<p>I shut my door and gently locked it.</p>
<p>My son had not lingered at the door like he usually does for deliverers of pizza, but I had seen his hand at the blinds. He asked who was at the door, what they wanted. Just a man and a woman, I told him; They wanted to talk about what they believed. He was satisfied, moving on to another of the approximately 874 questions he asks each day.</p>
<p>Once his voice quieted, I took stock of myself. My stomach still felt abandoned. Holding up my palm, I saw without surprise that it was shaking. All this time, all these years, so many false degrees of separation later - I am still a child dissatisfied with their answers.</p>
<p>Their buildings are modest, their funds are not. Their beliefs are lowly, their lies lofty. Their army is filled with kind, loving <em>Brothers and Sisters </em>waiting to welcome me home, infiltrating the one I have made for myself. My blog is tiny and their website is translatable into languages I can't pronounce.</p>
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<p>They scare me.</p>
<p>Not the believers - the beliefs. They knock on my door, but prey on the hearts of others. Jehovah's Witnesses are only one sect of one religion of three of hundreds of thousands.</p>
<p>I am small, but I speak. I speak so there is a voice besides their own.</p>
<p><em>Originally Published on <a href="http://mmjgwrites.wordpress.com" target="_blank">Wary Wonderlust</a></em></p>The Big Shamtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2014-02-14:1982180:BlogPost:14331862014-02-14T21:23:22.000ZTimhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/Tim423
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<p>I stopped going to church over 40 years ago. I have friends from that time who are still Fundamentalist Christians. My parents and some of their parents are still Fundamentalist Christians. When I talk to them they usually avoid talking about religion to me. I think that it's for…</p>
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<p>I stopped going to church over 40 years ago. I have friends from that time who are still Fundamentalist Christians. My parents and some of their parents are still Fundamentalist Christians. When I talk to them they usually avoid talking about religion to me. I think that it's for two reasons. <br/><br/>First, I can answer all of their questions but they can't answer any of my questions.<br/><br/>Second, I think that they realize that continuing our discussion to it's logical end would require them to admit that their entire life has been a big sham. <br/><br/>I feel very sorry for them.<br/><br/></p>Reality Isn't Up for Debatetag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-12-06:1982180:BlogPost:14618132013-12-06T21:00:00.000ZM.M.J. Gregoryhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MuggleinConverse
<p><a href="http://thesuperstitiousnakedape.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">John Zande</a> wrote a <a href="http://atheistenquiry.org/2013/10/17/q-why-are-you-so-concerned-about-religion-as-an-atheist-you-dont-believe-in-god-so-why-bother-concerning-yourself-with-religion-part-two/" target="_blank">fantastic post</a> about why atheists care about religion. In it, he addressed the idea that a comfortable lie should take precedence over potentially uncomfortable truths. I've written…</p>
<p><a href="http://thesuperstitiousnakedape.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">John Zande</a> wrote a <a href="http://atheistenquiry.org/2013/10/17/q-why-are-you-so-concerned-about-religion-as-an-atheist-you-dont-believe-in-god-so-why-bother-concerning-yourself-with-religion-part-two/" target="_blank">fantastic post</a> about why atheists care about religion. In it, he addressed the idea that a comfortable lie should take precedence over potentially uncomfortable truths. I've written<a href="http://mmjgwrites.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/life-is-but-a-momentary-glimpse-of-the-wonder-of-this-astonishing-universe-and-it-is-sad-to-see-so-many-dreaming-it-away-on-spiritual-fantasy-carl-sagan/" target="_blank"> a little bit</a> about why I think religious lies aren't worth the comfort they bring. John put an interesting twist on the issue which made me think about popular culture. The stories that populate the mainstream, especially movies, constantly reward blind faith and vilify rationally thinking characters. It's a trend that agitates me endlessly.</p>
<p>Due to the two little heathens in my home, I watch an awful lot of children's television. Let me tell you, the storylines that honor faith and decry skepticism start young. Two that immediately come to mind deal with Santa and fairies.</p>
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<p><em>The Polar Express</em> tells the story of a young boy that is growing out of the impressionable age where the existence of Santa is a given. After falling asleep while researching the topic, he wakes to discover a magical train outside his house. Along with a handful of other children, he travels to the North Pole. He sees elves and gets a behind the scenes look at Santa's operation. Even so, he doesn't truly believe until he sees the man himself among all the holiday splendor. Only then can he hear the thunderous bells ringing on Santa's sleigh, one of which is given to him as a present.</p>
<p>While his parents, the unbelievers, cannot hear the tinkling of the silver bell, he and his sister can. The last line of the movie drives the point home, "At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah [his sister] found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe."</p>
<p><em>Polar</em> encourages blind faith in two ways. First, when the boy was skeptical, he was called a liar by his own father and scared by a Scrooge puppet. The audience is led to pity him. Social pressure is one of the quickest ways to silence dissenting thought. The parting line implies that the unbelievers are less for having lost their faith. The main character was given ample proof, but the others were not. Should they trust his personal experience without any further evidence? Of course not. But who wants to be stodgy cynic when you can be the special one?</p>
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<p><em>Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue</em> is more open in its condemnation of science and disbelief. Lizzie is the daughter of a preoccupied scientist. She has an obsession with fairies, which her father tells her are not real. It isn't long before Lizzy meets Tinker Bell, a flesh and blood flying fairy. She wants to share her discovery with her father, but is afraid that he would treat Tink like the insects he displays in glass cases.</p>
<p>Instead, she does something very scientific. (Yay for silver linings!) Lizzie works with Tink to create a research journal, recording all of the information about fairy life that she possibly can. The grumpy, unlikable father is too busy to even look at her research. Later, he throws away her drawings and journal in a fit of anger. Tink reveals herself to show him the truth, leading to another fairy being captured. Eventually, Lizzie is able to convince her father to free the fairy and their relationship is better than ever before.</p>
<p>Lizzy's belief goes against the status quo and her story takes the martyr path. She believes despite the odds and ends up being validated, but only after being terrorized by her own father. Only when the father/scientist is transformed by belief does he do anything kind. The message is clear: fight for your beliefs, the doubters are vile and wrong. But again, this child was given special knowledge.</p>
<p>While (most) adults know that neither Santa or fairies exist, most children are actively encouraged to believe. These movies, and others like them, tell them to have faith in what they cannot see.<em> Sure, you may never meet Santa or capture a fairy, but someone has.</em> It isn't hard to see how these stories hard-wire the children that watch them for a lifetime of religious belief. The same trope is present in a lot of media - believe in what you cannot see and perhaps one day you will. Hello land of false hope and shattered dreams.</p>
<p>I have a hard time lying to my children. I do my best to avoid even the small ones (<em>Sorry honey, the park is closed today</em>). I grew up without Santa (or any holiday for that matter). The idea of actively lying to them feels deceitful and abhorrent. But I know a lot of people, religious and otherwise, that have fond memories of growing up with these traditions. The non-religious tend to use them as a learning moment - the whole world can be wrong about something. How children don't immediately start questioning God (along with everything else they're told) is beyond me. Then again, I think they all do eventually. The trick is whether or not they are brave enough to follow their own logic.</p>
<p>My oldest, Boots, tends to go for Pascal's Wager when holidays approach. Other than that, she's pretty skeptical. Sometimes she gets distressed trying to work it out. I encourage her to think and reason for herself. So far, so good. My three year only has a vague concept of all of it though he has no problem telling us what he'd like to find under the tree.</p>
<p>I could be wrong. Fairies might populate the few areas of untouched nature in the world. We haven't discovered much of the ocean, perhaps mermaids are down there somewhere. If not here, maybe in an alternate universe. In the end, my goal is the same as it always was: teach my children how to think, not what to think. With indoctrination being the norm, I have to wonder if that goal is realistic.<br/><br/>Originally published on <a href="http://mmjgwrites.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Wary Wonderlust</a></p>Evaluationtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-05-29:1982180:BlogPost:13202112013-05-29T16:32:04.000ZRick Yosthttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/RickYost
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is my last report regarding<br></br> my mission to evaluate the beings of this world.<br></br> Thirty of this planet’s orbital cycles ago<br></br> I arrived here by Refracted Linear-Light/Fold.<br></br> Since then I have lived, worked, and played alongside<br></br> these beings in the guise of one of their own.<br></br> Universal Protocols remain intact.<br></br> I have had no ill-effect nor have I…</span></span></em></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is my last report regarding<br/> my mission to evaluate the beings of this world.<br/> Thirty of this planet’s orbital cycles ago<br/> I arrived here by Refracted Linear-Light/Fold.<br/> Since then I have lived, worked, and played alongside<br/> these beings in the guise of one of their own.<br/> Universal Protocols remain intact.<br/> I have had no ill-effect nor have I changed anything.<br/> The knowledge I have gathered from observing<br/> this world will enrich our own.<br/></span></span></em> <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">-be, MOjsz-</span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">~~~~~~~~<br/><br/> What follows is an overview with comment-<br/> EVALUATION- DU/,E69424. report: <span style="text-decoration: underline;">earth</span><br/> ~lrembe.MOjsz, xrs.<br/><br/></span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Of the life forms I have observed here, the dominant species that call themselves ‘humans’ warrant mention for their awkward mental state and puzzling behavior. Although humans are the only level-2 technologically advanced species on this world, they lack the emotional strength necessary to exist comfortably within their own psyches. Their emotions and fears define them.</span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Humans are skittish, nervous animals and panic easily. They are prone to complain of various imagined maladies such as “…feeling ‘a void within themselves”, or “something missing from their lives”. Similarly, they speak of feelings that disturb them such as ‘lonely’, ‘empty’, or ‘lost’. <br/> The daily lives of humans are full of things that scare them. The everyday uncertainties and dangers of their world cause them great anxiety and stress. For many, their everyday existence can be an overwhelming ordeal. They are disturbed by questions they cannot answer, and fear what they do not understand.</span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">To lessen their fear of the unknown, and reduce the stress of their worrisome unanswered questions, they craft their lives around ancient stories from the days and lives of their ancestors. These stories are connected cautionary-tales, camp-fire stories, and rules of conduct designed to control their daily lives. They are comforted by the answers their ancient ancestors derived from the stories, and accept the same answers for their own questions in the present.<br/> Story followers live by the written word of their ancestors, eat similar foods as their ancestors, and dress in similar attire. They recite segments of the ancient text and quote their story-heroes. They go to great lengths to re-enact story events, and essentially act as participants in their ancestor’s stories. <br/> They busy themselves and adorn their lives with all manner of ancient custom, decoration and practices relating to their story; bells and baubles, hats and robes, shrines and temples, wine and incense, bowing and praying, and rituals and ceremonies. Like thespians, they continuously perform their lives as an improvised stage-show based on the ancient stories, complete with wardrobe, sets and music.</span></span> <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In most religious stories there is a central hero, a parental-figure referred to as a ‘god’. Gods are considered perfect, omnipotent beings. They are found in all the stories and they all claim to be the creators and rulers of the universe.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">For the common individual, following a religion offers a ready-made and time-honored structure they can count on for moral support in dealing with their worrisome lives. Joining a group of story followers gives them relief from their loneliness. Opportunistic beings by nature, in most stories they are also offered a reward for living their lives faithfully, and following the rules of conduct until death.</span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There are over ten-thousand stories currently being re-told around the globe. Stories are integral to the makeup of human societies. Some religions have existed for centuries, attracting millions of loyal followers called, ‘believers’. Religions of this size are essentially global business organizations, influencing large segments of the population, and controlling large areas of the planet politically, economically, and militarily.<br/> Unfortunately, some religions have problematic rules of conduct. Some religions contend that to follow any religion other than theirs, is a crime punishable by death. As you can imagine, this creates a constant tension between all parties involved.</span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This world-wide obsession with religion would be a harmless aberration if not for the ease with which millions of humans can be coerced by religious leaders into acts of aggression and war. Religion is used regularly as a reason to exert power and commit regional and global violence.<br/> Malice aside, billions of humans practicing different religions separates the species into competitive groups, and each group is forced to act on the assumption that they alone are the superior group. This is common to most religions. Because every group assumes their superiority, the planet continues to be in the same dysfunctional, feudal, tribal state it has been for centuries. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Religion hinders and complicates every human endeavor, and its competing ideologies endanger the safety of the entire population. The political arguments and constant battling between religions is in part why three billion out of the seven billion humans on the planet are either ill, dying, or at best living in poverty waiting to die.</span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As you know, we have observed these beings from a far for some time. I can report that our initial impressions of them were accurate; they are the strangest life-forms I’ve encountered on any of the worlds I’ve observed. Just as they've done for centuries, they continue to flounder intellectually while acting out their ancestor’s stories and religious fantasies. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">They have made very few attempts to utilize their minds past perfecting their egos. They seem to be quite content with creating, and fighting over their world of things.</span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Aside from this mental dysfunction, they appear benign in all other aspects of their existence. Except for some crude attempts at off-world exploration, I think our concerns are unfounded; they will never manage to leave their planetary system in any great number, let alone threaten other inhabited worlds. I predict the species will either self-destruct, or simply die out long before they end their obsessions, and their minds become fully functional.<br/></span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Observer comment:<br/> I will add that I have enjoyed observing these beings. They are strange, self-limiting, and self-destructive, yet endearing in an amusing way.</span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">~~~~~~~~<br/><br/></span></span> <em><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This has been an abbreviated version of my full official report filed: 7590.Ut0004.k97.</span></span></em><span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br/> ~MOjsz<br/><br/><br/></span></span></p>Morality Without Godtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-03-12:1982180:BlogPost:12726002013-03-12T00:50:24.000Zdiogened66http://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/RogerEveraert
<p> <span class="font-size-3"> Morality Without God</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p> Ten reasons why I would argue that my lack of a belief in a punishing God makes me a more moral person than someone who is religious. My moral choices aren’t made out of fear of eternal punishment. Just as I don’t have a reason to have “good” morals, I don’t have an excuse for bad ones, either.</p>
<p>1.) I don’t have a…</p>
<p> <span class="font-size-3"> Morality Without God</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p>
<p> Ten reasons why I would argue that my lack of a belief in a punishing God makes me a more moral person than someone who is religious. My moral choices aren’t made out of fear of eternal punishment. Just as I don’t have a reason to have “good” morals, I don’t have an excuse for bad ones, either.</p>
<p>1.) I don’t have a religious justification to hate someone for having the “wrong” religion, so I don’t hate people because they follow a certain religion.</p>
<p>2.) I don’t have a religious justification to support certain wars due to a belief that it will fulfill some sort of ancient prophecy, so I oppose needless death and destruction.</p>
<p>3.) I don’t have a religious justification to strap a bomb to my chest and blow myself up in a crowded market, so I don’t strap a bomb to my chest and blow myself up in a crowded market.</p>
<p>4.) I don’t have a religious justification to deprive my children of truthful, frank sex education and the knowledge of safe and effective birth control use; so when I have a teenage daughter, she will be less likely to have sex too young, get pregnant, or get an STD.</p>
<p>5.) I don’t have a religious justification to hate gay people, so I don’t hate gay people.</p>
<p>6.) I don’t have a religious justification to believe that women are inherently inferior to men, so I don’t believe women are inferior to men.</p>
<p>7) I don’t have a religious justification to not see a doctor when I’m sick, so I see a doctor when I’m sick.</p>
<p>8.) I don’t have a religious justification to hate someone for being a member of the “wrong” race, so I am not a racist.</p>
<p>9.) I don’t have a religious justification to not care about climate change because “God would never let it get that bad before the end comes.”</p>
<p>10.) I don’t believe that I have an eternal, joy-filled life waiting for me after I die, so I appreciate the value and sanctity of this one.</p>
<p></p>Christians, Stop Using the "Well there were eyewitnesses" Defensetag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-03-01:1982180:BlogPost:12658802013-03-01T15:21:06.000ZNelson Hernandezhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/NelsonHernandez
As I enter more and more into the debate world, there is a peculiar phenomena that I find when debating Christians. It is the belief that eyewitness testimony is at all reliable. Especially so when it comes to the divinity of Yeshua (Jesus). Unfortunately this is completely wrong when it comes to proving the bibles validity. There is no presupposition here. It's pure fact from study and research. Let's take a look at the account that Christians give when it comes to the Bibles historic content…
As I enter more and more into the debate world, there is a peculiar phenomena that I find when debating Christians. It is the belief that eyewitness testimony is at all reliable. Especially so when it comes to the divinity of Yeshua (Jesus). Unfortunately this is completely wrong when it comes to proving the bibles validity. There is no presupposition here. It's pure fact from study and research. Let's take a look at the account that Christians give when it comes to the Bibles historic content and what they consider "proof" of Yeshua's divinity and actions throughout the Bible.<br />
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Eyewitness testimony in Luke<br />
Although Luke never knew Jesus personally, he makes two specific claims: to have obtained his material from eyewitnesses and to have done his homework. He says the things he records were given to him "by those who from the first were eyewitnesses" and "I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning" (Luke 1:1-4). EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - EYEWITNESS<br />
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Here is a perfect example of faulty testimony taken as truth and a good eyewitness account. Notice how it is first stated that Luke never knew Yeshua and relied solely on "witness" testimony.<br />
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Eyewitness Testimony in the New Testament John<br />
John's gospel is the only gospel that specifically claims to be a direct eyewitness account. We have the plain statement at the end of the gospel concerning "the disciple that Jesus loved" that: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true" (John 21:24). This is probably an editorial comment added by someone closely associated with John. EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - EYEWITNESS<br />
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On this particular website (I have given the citation beneath each paragraph), is very common to the Christian way of thinking. The problem here is that we have proven, especially in our Criminal Justice system, that first account eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Yet Bible scholars will have you believe that not only is the supposedly eyewitness accounts 100% accurate but that second, third, and fourth person accounts are reliable as well. I don't think so.<br />
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The following except is from Stanford University's Journal of Legal Studies.<br />
" Several studies have been conducted on human memory and on subjects’ propensity to remember erroneously events and details that did not occur. Elizabeth Loftus performed experiments in the mid-seventies demonstrating the effect of a third party’s introducing false facts into memory.4 Subjects were shown a slide of a car at an intersection with either a yield sign or a stop sign. Experimenters asked participants questions, falsely introducing the term "stop sign" into the question instead of referring to the yield sign participants had actually seen. Similarly, experimenters falsely substituted the term "yield sign" in questions directed to participants who had actually seen the stop sign slide. The results indicated that subjects remembered seeing the false image. In the initial part of the experiment, subjects also viewed a slide showing a car accident. Some subjects were later asked how fast the cars were traveling when they "hit" each other, others were asked how fast the cars were traveling when they "smashed" into each other. Those subjects questioned using the word "smashed" were more likely to report having seen broken glass in the original slide. The introduction of false cues altered participants’ memories." -The Problem with Eyewitness Testimony<br />
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Steven Duke for Yale University Law School states tells of a story in where a rape victim positively "identified" her attacker. This person was convicted and sent to prison. After eighteen years, science, particularly DNA testing, showed that the person accused was indeed innocent. Eyewitness Testimony Doesn't Make It True<br />
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What does this say about eyewitness accounts? The proof is in the pudding. They are unreliable. The human mind interprets things using several factors. Prior experience, sequence and pattern recognition and understanding of a situation to process information. It has been proven many times that your eyes can "play tricks" on you. How does all this fit into the account of Yeshua, his divinity and even his existence? THERE IS NO VALID PROOF OF ANY OF IT. If we know that eyewitness testimony can and is without a doubt faulty. If we know that there are no complete records (if any) of who indeed wrote the New Testament. I believe we can come to the simple conclusion that the possibility of the bibles accuracy is definitely in question. I personally would go even further is stating that is most likely a document made up of false memories, embellishments and exaggerations. Yet many still choose to cling to a book that by itself can not stand up to scrutiny. Still even more claim that this book is, without a doubt, the official word of god and should be treated as such. All this after knowing of changes that have been made. Books removed for lack of conical material and now a debunking of the eyewitness accounts in the Bible.<br />
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After all of this, they still will believe. Such is the nature of man that they have to feel tied or connected to someone or something else. As an atheist, I feel the same as well, except I understand that we are not alone. We have each other to make our lives fulfilled. Give up the fantasy.Chosen belief?tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-02-28:1982180:BlogPost:12655362013-02-28T03:30:00.000ZJameshttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/1989LX
<p><a href="http://brainhulklogicsmash.blogspot.com/2012/08/chosen-belief.html">http://brainhulklogicsmash.blogspot.com/2012/08/chosen-belief.html</a></p>
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<p>Choice... It's an…</p>
<p><a href="http://brainhulklogicsmash.blogspot.com/2012/08/chosen-belief.html">http://brainhulklogicsmash.blogspot.com/2012/08/chosen-belief.html</a></p>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j116/Guinness_2006/iStock_000018372486XSmallChoice_zps116f5069.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j116/Guinness_2006/iStock_000018372486XSmallChoice_zps116f5069.jpg" border="0" height="319" width="320"/></a> </div>
<p>Choice... It's an interesting thing that some people like to throw around as if everything is a choice. Sometimes things are a choice, and some things are not. I can choose whether or not to have a cookie before dinner. But I can't choose what my favorite ice-cream is. In that instance, I taste different flavors and have an involuntary feeling about the different flavors. I simply taste and I like it or I don't. Some people like to claim that sexual preference is a choice. Is it though? These people would have you believe that people that identify as homosexual sat down one day and asked themselves who they wanted to be attracted to. They thought long and hard about it and eventually came to a decision.</p>
<p>If this premise were true, that would also suggest that heterosexuality is also a choice. So, I ask of you... If you're 'straight', when did you sit down and decide that fact? Was it difficult to come to that decision? Or were you like me (and everyone else I've asked this question), and simply were how you are? I'm a heterosexual, and can tell you that I never had to 'decide' that fact. So why should we believe homosexuality is any different? Some people are of one sexual preference, some are another, and some are another still.</p>
<p>But lets just assume that it is a choice for arguments sake. Lets go with the claim that heterosexuality is the default sexual orientation. So even then, what makes someone think that a person can simply change away from that preference of favoring and being attracted to the opposite sex, to being attracted to the same sex? Remember, what you like is involuntary. Just like if you like a food or you don't, you either like men or you like women. Just like you can't simply <i>decide</i> to like Brussels Sprouts, you can't just <i>decide</i> to be attracted to a sex that you previously weren't attracted to. That's like saying that any one of us can just decide to be attracted to any person, whether our 'type' or not. In this sense, sexuality is not a choice at all!</p>
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<p><br/> <br/> I also hear a similar claim when it comes to religious belief... or more specifically, my lack thereof. I've been told that "You just don't want to believe", or asked "Why don't you just believe just in case?" Such silly statements when you consider that belief is involuntary. It is not a conscious choice that you get to decide. Let me ask... Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy? No? Well, go ahead and decide to believe in the Tooth Fairy anyway. You'll quickly find that you can't simply decide to believe in something that you don't actually believe in. True, you can always fake belief just like parents fake belief in Santa to their kids. But the simple fact is, that when you look inside, you still don't actually believe in the Tooth Fairy, or jolly old Saint Nick no matter what kind of front you put up.</p>
<p>In that same way, I can't simply decide to believe in a deity, or decide not to. It's all a matter of being convinced by the data your brain has at it's disposal. When you're a child, you believe your parent's authority when they tell you of Santa. But as you grow and learn, things just start to add up until one day you realize that you don't believe in Santa anymore (unless your parents tell you first). There was no conscious decision of whether to believe in Santa or not. There just came a point where your brain made the connections that lead it to determine that it was no longer a believable premise. It's much the same when my non-belief is the topic of discussion. I don't lack belief because I want to. Actually, I think it would be cool if some form of reincarnation were actually real. However, what I want doesn't enter into what I'm convinced by.</p>
<p>Given what I know, I'm simply unconvinced by god claims. If arguments don't meet the required muster to convince me, my belief will remain unchanged. That said, my atheism is open to revision should something come to light that would convince me that some form of theism were true. However, I can not simply decide to believe, or not believe, any more than anyone else can decide to believe in any matter of fantastic creature through sheer will alone. You can't decide to stop loving your spouse, but you can stop loving them if new information or actions come to your attention that undermine the previous data set your feelings were built on. It's an unconscious weighing of everything by your brain. I cannot decide to believe, just like one can't decide to not be afraid of a Lion or a clown. You can conquer these fear through other means, buy simply deciding not to be afraid isn't one of them.</p>
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<p><br/> As you can see there are times when the 'choice' that someone may bring up wasn't a choice at all. But rather a natural reaction or the result of the actions of the unconscious mind drawing conclusions from knowledge and experience. And that's not a bad thing. In fact being aware of this fact is good and can be the path to some of the most honest answers and opinions you could ever get.</p>I'm ok, you on the other hand are crazy.tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2013-01-19:1982180:BlogPost:12491552013-01-19T04:45:53.000ZDoug Reardonhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/DougReardon
<p>My Science Fiction club was meeting the other night, and the subject of weird religions came up (most members are christians) and everybody started trashing mormonism and scientology as particularly unbelieveable, when I said: "When you realize why you don't believe in those, you will know why I don't believe yours! This earned a nervous laugh among the "saved" crowd. But it did recall to mind all the group therapy sessions I ran at the transitional home. Everybody realized and agreed…</p>
<p>My Science Fiction club was meeting the other night, and the subject of weird religions came up (most members are christians) and everybody started trashing mormonism and scientology as particularly unbelieveable, when I said: "When you realize why you don't believe in those, you will know why I don't believe yours! This earned a nervous laugh among the "saved" crowd. But it did recall to mind all the group therapy sessions I ran at the transitional home. Everybody realized and agreed with the other members of the group as to why each member was there, except for themselves whom they always thought had been inappropriately and wrongly committed to the facility. I guess a diseased (or religious) mind is just incapable of accurate and rational self evaluation.</p>Praise Gob!tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-10-09:1982180:BlogPost:11915382012-10-09T17:29:30.000ZPope Beaniehttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/PaulRyan
<p>While currently going through a period of low motivation, I'm wishing that some magical power would just pop into my head and push buttons or zap something. When I was a teen, once or twice I think I tried to make a deal with God, something like "Help me with this, and I'll reconsider You!". Never answered, of course.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, science has proven a few times the power of the placebo. Just believe, and things get better right? Is there a way to make this happen, but <em>without…</em></p>
<p>While currently going through a period of low motivation, I'm wishing that some magical power would just pop into my head and push buttons or zap something. When I was a teen, once or twice I think I tried to make a deal with God, something like "Help me with this, and I'll reconsider You!". Never answered, of course.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, science has proven a few times the power of the placebo. Just believe, and things get better right? Is there a way to make this happen, but <em>without</em> presuming supernatural intervention?</p>
<p>I'm at a disadvantage here, intellectually sure that--if there's a soul or power within me, it's just an illusion. But if it feels like Free Will, shouldn't that be sufficient? Science has also recently proven the power of placebo, even when the believer <em>knows</em> it's a placebo! There is a power, somewhere, that can be tapped.</p>
<p>Where is this power? Is it separate from myself, or is it myself? I'm confused! But that's ok, right? The goal here is to not think about it. Just believe.</p>
<p>Just believe in the synapses, dendrites, action potentials; the cosmic power of neuronal networking. That <strong>gob</strong> of stuff in the cranium. (Oh man, I'm sure this sounds <strong>corny</strong>. Ok, so be it. Corny on the Gob, then.)</p>
<p>Let there be Gob! So, can I finally settle for this half-belief, somewhere in between reality and delusion?</p>
<p>Won't you join me, as I pray to Gob? No, wait. I'll just imagine that everyone is with me, in spirit.</p>
<p>OMG, it's working already!</p>The Contribution Of Religion To The Ubiquitous Desensitization To Harmingtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-08-06:1982180:BlogPost:11643782012-08-06T16:01:19.000Zmaruli marulakihttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/marulimarulaki
<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Ubiquitous Desensitization To Harming</b> <br></br><br></br> The biological asymmetry of the survival of the human species depending on pregnancies and births being severe harm only to women, while men are spared, is no rational justification for accepting harming as natural.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">In <a href="http://egalitarianrationalcommitmentparadigm.blogspot.com/2012/08/552-harm-and-evolution-of-gullibility.html">entry 552</a> I attributed…</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Ubiquitous Desensitization To Harming</b> <br/><br/> The biological asymmetry of the survival of the human species depending on pregnancies and births being severe harm only to women, while men are spared, is no rational justification for accepting harming as natural.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">In <a href="http://egalitarianrationalcommitmentparadigm.blogspot.com/2012/08/552-harm-and-evolution-of-gullibility.html">entry 552</a> I attributed the evolution of the gullibility to believe in delusional deities to supplying both resilience to the victim and displacement of responsibility to the perpetrator following his instinctive urges.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">As a consequence, people are misguided to principally accept harming as a normal part of living and not as an outrage and a derangement and distortion of the potential of human cognition.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">While the religious beliefs served or facilitated the initial establishing of the acceptance of harm, but from then on it becomes independent of its religious roots once it is part of the social norm.<br/><br/> The awakening reason of the maturing brain enables some people to comprehend the irrationality of believing in a non-existent deity. This enables them to throw over the religious beliefs, they had grown up with, But they do not automatically also get aware of how much more of their thinking needs also to be reconsidered as an indirect consequence of the religious beliefs.<br/><br/> The logical next step after discarding the belief in a deity would be to also adjust the moral justification of behaviors. The principle by Epicurus of not harming and not be harmed and the golden rule are rational guidelines, while the belief in being rewarded in the afterlife and the belief of harm being justified by the responsibility of a deity are obsolete and irrational.<br/><br/> Unfortunately, the general acceptance of harming is rarely questioned, even by those, who have freed themselves from the religious beliefs. In western societies, the acceptance of harming is a part of the culture. Children grow up with it until they take it for granted and cannot even think of it as just an option with alternatives. Harming is not connected with religion but taken for granted as if it were a law of life.<br/><br/> The effects of installing harming as acceptable behavior into the perpetrators' brain and to be harmed as unfortunate but acceptable fate into the victims' brains reinforce each other as complementary.<br/><br/> <u>Perpetrators: </u> <br/><br/> Perpetrators become desensitized by repeating behaviors, to which they, usually by empathy, had initially felt inhibited, until the cruelty becomes a routine.<br/> Desensitization to being cruel can become irreversible. Desensitization to inflicting pain on others usually happens at a young age under the influence of education, role models and social norms, which are also an expression of the morals of the predominant religion.<br/><br/> War as a drastic example is an expression of the ingroup-outgroup instinct. If nobody would be considered as outgroup, there were no wars. Sometimes the ingroup is defined by sharing the same religion.<br/> Parts of the training of soldiers is the desensitization to overcome any killing inhibition.<br/> This desensitization is usually permanent. Soldiers coming back from the war may well have the insight and the self-control not to kill members of the ingroup, but they have no inhibition to do so.<br/><br/> But the most common and ubiquitous desensitization causes subtle and invisible harm by emotional cruelty like manipulating, betrayal, cheating, playing games, intrigues, mobbing, mocking, humiliating, ridiculing. These are just a few examples from a long list of cognitive and emotional methods of harming. They suffice to illustrate the kind of hurtful weapons serving the instincts to procreate and to gain access to resources available to those having high positions on hierarchies.<br/><br/> <u>Victims:</u><br/><br/> The acceptance of being harmed as unavoidable has been installed by the delusion of it being the deity's will. The resilience to suffer in submission and resignation has been installed by the delusion of the reward in the afterlife.<br/> Logically, as soon as someone discards the belief in the deity, this obsolete and irrational acceptance of being harmed should be discarded immediately. Harm should be recognized as what it really is: an outrage against human dignity.<br/> Instead irrational expectations of a resilience out of proportion of the serious impact of harm has become a social norm not only by the perpetrators but also by the victims themselves.<br/>The social norm of irrational resilience is based upon the perpetrators' expectations, that their desensitization would lead automatically to an equal desensitization of the victims, who should not suffer but are instead supposed to agree with the harm allegedly being appropriate treatment, They are expected not to suffer due to being oblivious of the injustice and the absurdity of the instinctive behaviors. <p>Those not resilient as victims of not physical and thus invisible cruelties are considered as flawed, defective, weak and in need to be fixed. And too often they accept this themselves. They do not resist, rebel or protest, they do not demand better treatment, instead they take psycho-pharmaceuticals, go to therapy, or cope in even more unhealthy ways. They get sympathy and compassion as failures, not the solidarity needed as the victims of wrong behavior.<br/><br/><br/>Discarding irrational religious beliefs does not suffice. Required is also a revision of the entire attitudes and habits as to what behaviors of religious roots are not only irrational but cause damage. This revision means to focus on taking full own responsibility by gaining full awareness and knowledge of the perception and experience of the target of behaviors. Even though some desensitization cannot be undone, full awareness can be a method of learning how to avoid harming after having decided to do so.</p>
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<p>This is a copy from my ERCP-blog:</p>
<p><a href="http://egalitarianrationalcommitmentparadigm.blogspot.de/2012/08/554-ubiquitous-desensitization-to.html" target="_blank">http://egalitarianrationalcommitmentparadigm.blogspot.de/2012/08/554-ubiquitous-desensitization-to.html</a></p>
</div>You Do the Mathtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-05-30:1982180:BlogPost:11315642012-05-30T11:07:39.000ZDonald R Barberahttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/DonaldRBarbera
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #ffff00;"><em><strong><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With the rise of Evangelical Christianity in the United States a corresponding increase in finger pointing and blame claiming that the country is in moral decline accompanied it. The usual culprits for the fingered for the alleged deterioration are liberals, non-Christians and unbelievers, but a look at the numbers show the source may be a closer to…</span></strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #ffff00;"><em><strong><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With the rise of Evangelical Christianity in the United States a corresponding increase in finger pointing and blame claiming that the country is in moral decline accompanied it. The usual culprits for the fingered for the alleged deterioration are liberals, non-Christians and unbelievers, but a look at the numbers show the source may be a closer to home.</span></strong></em></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #ffff00;"><em><strong><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://api.ning.com:80/files/YgKACGthXrGEi5Bw5tuET9OcGvNbTyMnYFa8x*NTLdFhKg3*e5moJTVfLdrl53z33TTbyF7HrOc9VBPF-Kp4pXBItnJt0t6O/Probability.jpg" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://api.ning.com:80/files/YgKACGthXrGEi5Bw5tuET9OcGvNbTyMnYFa8x*NTLdFhKg3*e5moJTVfLdrl53z33TTbyF7HrOc9VBPF-Kp4pXBItnJt0t6O/Probability.jpg" width="346" height="144"/></a></span></strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Without a doubt Christianity is the dominant religion in the United States comprising 75 percent of the population. Christian churches outnumber those of other religions by nearly a ten to one margin. Christian television and radio dominates the airwaves, so much so that shows representing other religions are nigh invisible, but all is not well within the body of Christ.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><em><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Math</span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Simply stated, the probability that 25% of the population being responsible for the moral decline of the country is not only a stretch, but patently ridiculous. Taken literally, the assumption implies that 25% of the population is responsible for all the ills of society such as white collar crime, prostitution, abortion, war, lying, cheating and a host of pathologies that contribute to lowering morality standards in the United States.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The probability of this being the case is nearly impossible. Without a detailed explanation of the Law of Probability an analogy might make it clearer. I can view any professional football game at any stadium in the United States and know the majority attending are Christian. It is not because Christians like football more than other faiths; rather, it is because almost 80 percent of the country is Christian. A note telling Christians to stay home would be necessary for it to be any other way. Of course, the same reasoning applies to every bar and strip joint.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What the Numbers Say</span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nearly eight of ten Americans self-indentify as Christian, a point that obviously goes unnoticed as Christian leaders scold entire groups and even the nation for behavior or actions they judge incompatible with their faith. Lost in the majority status of Christianity is that in any instance the likelihood of Christian involvement is not only high, but nearly guaranteed.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To illustrate the preeminence of the faith, Christians fill American penitentiaries as witnessed by the number of prison ministries tending the spiritual needs of those incarcerated. That there are more Christians in jail than any other faith is not the point. It is that with nearly 80 percent of the country claiming Christianity the possibility of it being different is almost nonexistent.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Christians speaking or writing about any topic address mostly Christians. Unless Christians directly address the Muslim, Hindu, agnostic or humanist communities, they lecture, praise, criticize, and complain about other Christians. When Christians criticize homosexuals, they speak of other Christians, although considering their treatment how long that will last dwindles each second. For all of those Christians seeking to deny abortion services, a little education would tell them 65-70 percent of those receiving abortions are Christian.<a title="" href="http://www.autodidactic.biz/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?ver=345-20111127#_edn1">[i]</a> Of the thieves, liars, adulterers, pornographers, pedophiles, cheaters, abusers, perverts and more, the majority will be Christian. They may not fit the mold Christian religionists wish, but they are part of the 76 percent, which religionists are loathe to alter and risk losing the claim to being a Christian nation.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Real Problem</span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is nearly impossible to ignore discrepancies in stated belief of Christians compared with documented behavior. A huge example of belief being out of balance with behavior is the Christian unawareness of their protected status guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Many Christians regularly complain, criticize, and even protest the same status of other groups, especially those of which they do not approve; unaware they sit in the same pew.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I mentioned before, with eight of ten Americans at least vocal Christians, the so-called values war is strictly a battle between Christians that despise the way other Christians behave. Realizing the implications of 8 of 10 Americans being Christian, points the finger where X marks the spot in the majority's home. It is literally a case of preaching to the choir. The problem is getting Christians to act like Christians.</span></p>
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<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"/><div><p><a title="" href="http://www.autodidactic.biz/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?ver=345-20111127#_ednref1">[i]</a> <span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Landscape of Abortion, <a href="http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&amp;TopicID=2">http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&amp;TopicID=2</a></span></p>
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><br clear="all"/><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"/><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #000000;"><a title="" href="http://www.autodidactic.biz/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/paste/pasteword.htm?ver=345-20111127#_ednref1"><span style="color: #000000;">[i]</span></a> <span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Landscape of Abortion, <a href="http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&amp;TopicID=2">http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&amp;TopicID=2</a></span></span></p>
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</div>Hell. Hell. It's always Hell!tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-05-24:1982180:BlogPost:11278562012-05-24T06:48:14.000ZRachelhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/RachelLein
<p>My separation from Christendom is relatively recent. At least, the more public end of it. I've entertained the idea of letting myself accept I no longer believed in any of the gods described by humans in any religion at any time in history for quite some time. I can't discount there could be some god or another somewhere out there. But I really doubt it.</p>
<p>The reaction to my rejection of religion has been about what I expected. It all came straight back to Hell. I am no stranger to…</p>
<p>My separation from Christendom is relatively recent. At least, the more public end of it. I've entertained the idea of letting myself accept I no longer believed in any of the gods described by humans in any religion at any time in history for quite some time. I can't discount there could be some god or another somewhere out there. But I really doubt it.</p>
<p>The reaction to my rejection of religion has been about what I expected. It all came straight back to Hell. I am no stranger to this, as the threats of eternal damnation in the fires of Hell have been used against me since I can even remember! Having grown up in a small backwoods town in South Mississippi, part of the Bible Belt, this was extremely common. You do anything that goes against the perfect world of Christianity and you're doomed to the torture pits! One of the most memorable experiences I had with this particular threat, in fact, happened when I was around 16 years old and in high school. I was raised not to believe in Hell, or even that normal people go to Heaven (belief system of Jehovah's Witnesses). One of the girls in my math class found out about my particular outlook on religion and the afterlife and ultimately rallied the class against me. Their biggest threat? Hell. They insisted I would roast in the flames of Hell because I didn't follow their particular idea of what the Bible said. Naturally, that didn't help my attitude towards religion as a whole, either, and it's stuck with me all these years since.</p>
<p>Here we are again. When I made it known to some of my more religious friends recently, Hell popped up again. That is, in those who have chosen not to run away from me as if I'm a carrier of the Black Plague, anyway. Ever since I made it known I've rejected all religion, I've been told I'll burn in hell for turning my back on God and Jesus. I've even had one friend I've known for a long time start posting passive aggressive Facebook statuses with Bible verses talking about the wrath that such rejection can invoke in God. Yeah, great guy, this God of yours. He's going to go apeshit on me because I don't want to believe in him? He's given me no good reasons I should, and yet, I'M the one who suffers? What a jerk!</p>
<p>What baffles me about this is... why do they think I care? I never believed in Hell in the first place. Why would I be afraid of it now? I know there isn't any point in trying to reason with these people. They've made up their minds and there's probably nothing I or anyone else could say or do to show them they're doing it wrong. But, seriously. Hell? What kind of pathetic threat is that!? Threaten me with a real life beating or telling me you think I'm scum or something. Anything else! Something more personal; something more tangible! Quit threatening me with your imaginary Hell! I don't care about your fairy tale Satan and his underground fortress of doom! GUH!!</p>
<p>Thank you for the opportunity to vent this frustration.</p>Knowledge VS Belieftag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-03-28:1982180:BlogPost:10866632012-03-28T00:03:10.000ZJohn Doddshttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/JohnDodds
<p>I've been studying comparative religions and as many different branches of science as I can understand for about 7 years (5-12 hours daily). I have learned the difference between belief and knowledge. The two are not interchangeable. If belief had knowledge it would not be able to be called belief, it would be knowledge. Believing is not good enough for me, I want to know. I Only then can I attempt to repair my mistake. I have learned that I am not comfortable relying upon belief to shape…</p>
<p>I've been studying comparative religions and as many different branches of science as I can understand for about 7 years (5-12 hours daily). I have learned the difference between belief and knowledge. The two are not interchangeable. If belief had knowledge it would not be able to be called belief, it would be knowledge. Believing is not good enough for me, I want to know. I Only then can I attempt to repair my mistake. I have learned that I am not comfortable relying upon belief to shape how I interact with all people or how I treat them. I feel stronger knowing that I have done another harm than if I only thought I did. Knowledge holds all the power to assist us in creating a more loving, fulfilling world society.</p>
<p>The main problem that I have with any type of belief is that it separates us into different groups, us and them. It is the same dichotomy prevalent in the much used divisions of male/female, black skin/white skin/all skin colors, smart/stupid, rich/poor, American/German/French/Italian and all others. Every one of these distinctions leads us to "us" and "them". Therein lies my problem.</p>
<p>I am not willing to give those divisions any reasonable reason for separating us from each other. We are equal beings on this planet, and any ideology that divides us into different groups, can lead us towards the habit of treating each other with less respect. I have seen it on both individual and grand scale. It is not mankind that is the problem, it is these ideas that keep us apart and also leads us to harm each other.</p>
<p>As long as we use beliefs as the motivation for the way we treat each other, we will erroneously treat each other as better or worse than "we" are. Each time we tell each other that our belief is the only right one we are actually belittling all others we encounter.</p>
<p>In the end, the only two choices we will end up with is that we will acquire the knowledge that one ideology or religion is the truth or we will realize that none are. At that point we will finally have grown up to the point of no war, no hate, NO PREJUDICE. We will finally treat each other with the love and support that we all need and deserve. It can only happen when we make other people's happiness and well being our main goal. We can only do it with knowledge, not ritual, dogma or a reliance on the past.</p>
<p>I don't think that I will live to see it, but my heart yearns for it.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>On Religious Faithtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-03-26:1982180:BlogPost:10859022012-03-26T18:30:00.000Zichbindaswortistichhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/ichbindaswortistich
<blockquote><p align="justify">Of course, science is not the enemy of religious faith. Sanity is. <em>(ichbindaswortistich)</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="justify">Over the ages, all religious pretensions, regardless of the respective faith of which they may have originated, have been disproved beyond any reasonable doubt. The earth is not flat but a sphere. The earth revolves about the sun, not vice versa. The earth is not the centre of the universe but a tiny planet in only one of myriads…</p>
<blockquote><p align="justify">Of course, science is not the enemy of religious faith. Sanity is. <em>(ichbindaswortistich)</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="justify">Over the ages, all religious pretensions, regardless of the respective faith of which they may have originated, have been disproved beyond any reasonable doubt. The earth is not flat but a sphere. The earth revolves about the sun, not vice versa. The earth is not the centre of the universe but a tiny planet in only one of myriads of galaxies. Neither have the species living today existed for ever, nor are they the only ones to ever have existed or exist. Neither believers nor disbelievers are necessarily moral or amoral. The list could be extended indefinitely.<br/> By fanatically and insistingly claiming to possess eternal, inalterable truths, and forcing people to abide by arbitrary rules and laws under the threat and execution of severe punishments, including torture and death, religious faith has hindered progress in all aspects of human life, such as health, medicine, technology, individual happiness, and societal welfare, and continues to do so today. It has laid claim to moral values to which every normal, healthy human being abides – often even more so – without religion, and thereby falsely acquired the reputation to be these values’ origin, while its actual rules and laws contradict both these values and themselves. It has inspired people of all ages to lies, cheating, rape, cruelty, torture, and murder for the alleged ‘crimes’ of being different, female, sceptical, (accused of) blasphemy and witchcraft, or simply different opinion. It continuously dismisses all evidence against its vile and vain claims out of hand, while it does not provide any evidence for them itself, demanding to be believed just for the sake of believing. It treats everything and everyone unpleasant to it with contempt and hatred, while it demands and commands everyone to respect it. It directly and indirectly robs people of their possessions, and sets friends, families, and entire nations against one another. It has created, and continues to do so, needs which would not have come into existence in the first place if it had not been for religious faith, and then goes on to claim it were necessary and useful.<br/> With this in mind, I am sick and tired of excuses being made on behalf of religious faith. Contrary to its own and its apologists’ claims, there is <em>nothing</em> good to religion whatsoever. Not only has it invented the concept of evil, but also has it proved itself – and continues to do so – time and again as its most enthusiastic perpetrator. It is the epitome of pestilence for the human mind. No sane being could ever agree with it on its true principles. So do you not ever ask for or demand my respect again. In order to improve the human condition on many aspects, first religious faith must become extinct.</p>Just A new one.tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-03-07:1982180:BlogPost:10748042012-03-07T21:19:34.000Zmasarumono duffhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/masarumonoduff
<p>My first blog.. let's hope we don't get bored?</p>
<p></p>
<p>I have been working alongside people of whom moved to my country from India. When i started my job (my FIRST job at 16) I hoped i could be guided and helped along the way. Don't get me wrong- i was; by the owner. He (who came from KENYA and INDIA) left us in charge when he thought i was able to sustain the shop on my own (after three months) Which meant i was left to work around my manager and three colleagues (one of which no…</p>
<p>My first blog.. let's hope we don't get bored?</p>
<p></p>
<p>I have been working alongside people of whom moved to my country from India. When i started my job (my FIRST job at 16) I hoped i could be guided and helped along the way. Don't get me wrong- i was; by the owner. He (who came from KENYA and INDIA) left us in charge when he thought i was able to sustain the shop on my own (after three months) Which meant i was left to work around my manager and three colleagues (one of which no longer works here). What i have learnt from them and their culture was a respectful experience. They we'rent shy about expressing themselves. Especially as the building my work is in surrounded by workers who came from India for a better life. These people became like a family to me. The cleaner guy who passes by and say's hi every 20 minutes, the guys at the mobile stalls who taken a liking to me (one stalked me, another claimed i was in a relationship with me and another tried to kidnap me) only two of the guys there were good men in my books. One who's english is limited, another who left for london -but he was my favorite- My colleague who is female (call her 'M') was a dramatic one, acted like a teenager and is the typical Bollywood loving girl. She hoped to marry her boyfriend of eight years, but after complications her boyfriends partner's mother became impatient and forced him into an arranged marriage. When i heard this i was astounded. I thought to myself "so how can he allow his mother to control him? especially as he is 28 ears of age?" Turns out, this is their culture and they respect their parents A LOT over there. So she spent around 2-3 months in dramatic sadness. every day she'd spend her time in the back crying from a broken heart. I could only offer my shoulder. She eventually stopped working and moved away to Luton near london to assume at a pharmacy with a PHD. </p>
<p>I told her throughout this experience that you need to do what you think is right.</p>
<p>but what i wanted to say is "You need to learn that his family disregarded his feelings and forced him into a selfish arrangement for their own cause. "</p>
<p>yeah, it's cruel, but i didn't understand their culture then. </p>
<p>The more i learned about their culture the more i could understand them.</p>
<p>My manager has recently been engaged (he went to his parents for an arranged marriage) And when i see them together i can feel their emotions off their faces and the way they react to one-another. It's incredibly negative. Lately he didn't seem his peppy self. Pressure from the thought of his marriage is affecting him, and every time his fiance comes to talk to him, whatever they're saying, she does a big self dramatic Play and starts to dramatize a few things. She goes into the back room and cries her eyes out. When i found out what had upset her; i laugh inside. "she was feeling cold" </p>
<p>gfcdxsdtyuiougfcghjkl</p>
<p>I want to help my boss. Why on earth does he feel like he HAS to marry? In his case his parent we'rent going to automatically put him into marriage, they were OK with him remaining single. I know for a fact that if he had freedom to do what he wanted instead of working he'd be hitched within a month. This guy is charismatic, funny, kind and willing to try new things. He underestimates himself, but he has emotional strength and will-power. </p>
<p>When i ask him about his religion he doesn't say much, and i question that.</p>
<p>But the woman (miss. M) who had left, when i asked about her beliefs she'd tell me and then with her dramatic superstitions she'd offer me some food i never tried and then skipped off thinking she'd converted me to believe there is a higher power (she knows i am athiest) Like a small child would ask you to choose which hand and if you chose the hand with cooties, you'd automatically be infected with nothingness. </p>
<p>My thoughts are that after learning so much about then i am no less swayed in thinking better about their belief system, because like many religion, they claim the best way of living and they commit bad. </p>
<p>for example leaving me to work from 11-11 on a busy saturday so they can go and have alot of food. </p>
<p>or even having a daughter so they don't have to discipline her. (which by the way the daughter controls the mother and gets whatever she wants and hits her uncle and mother, but the downside is that she is over weight and can hardly breathe due to her double chin. when i told them to stop bringing her to an adult area were we have to work and at least stick to the rules, they replied that their daughter must be treated as a princess..) I can tell that the child is incredibly unhappy as she has no boundaries and cries often due to confusion. </p>
<p>I can't say i'm not criticizing them, because i am. but all of this for me to handle as a first job is a culture shock. </p>
<p>I dare not raise my thoughts because i'm afraid of a kick off. but who cares ? well, me.</p>
<p></p>
<p>this was just an intro blog. i was just reminiscing and thought i should share it. :o</p>
<p>next blog will be more thought out and have a better point.</p>
<p>its going to be harsh against belief though.</p>Christians are up in arms about music video showing church burnings, but they don't understand its meaningtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2012-01-29:1982180:BlogPost:10394122012-01-29T11:00:00.000ZMichael Merritthttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MichaelMerritt
<p>A music video posted on the homepage of the <a href="http://rockbeyondbelief.com/" target="_blank">Rock Beyond Belief Festival</a>, that's being held for atheist servicemen and women in March at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, has roused the ire of several Christian blogs and commentators.</p>
<p>Filmed for the song "Hysteria" by rock band Aiden, the video (posted below), begins with several shots of church and synagogue burnings. Indeed, the song itself uses what appears to be lyrics…</p>
<p>A music video posted on the homepage of the <a href="http://rockbeyondbelief.com/" target="_blank">Rock Beyond Belief Festival</a>, that's being held for atheist servicemen and women in March at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, has roused the ire of several Christian blogs and commentators.</p>
<p>Filmed for the song "Hysteria" by rock band Aiden, the video (posted below), begins with several shots of church and synagogue burnings. Indeed, the song itself uses what appears to be lyrics supporting these actions: "Love how they burn your synagogues/Love how they torch your holy books".</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/F4C-cvG826o?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p>Fox News commentator Todd Starnes posted an article the other day <a href="http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/fort-bragg-to-host-anti-religion-event.html" target="_blank">drawing focus</a> to the church burning imagery. One of the other blogs I regularly read, a prominent tea party-supporting site (as I'll explain elsewhere, I travel in conservo-libertarian circles) wrote a post saying that the video was proof of the intolerance of atheists, comparing us to socialists, and calling American atheists "not real Americans."</p>
<p>The church burning shots were apparently about as far as any of the Christian commentators got in thinking about this video. While it is true that "Hysteria" and other Aiden songs are not friendly to the religious, the imagery used in the video is hardly "celebrating" church and synagogue burning as Starnes puts it. In fact, if you take five minutes to interpret the lyrics, Aiden is actually criticizing the role the religion has taken in a number of atrocities and hateful and criminal acts (like church and synagogue burning) throughout history.</p>
<p>The first line of the second stanza makes it abundantly clear what the song is actually about:</p>
<blockquote><p>Faith holding outright criminals safe</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Religions have been quite notorious for protecting criminals. The best known case of this in recent years has been of the Catholic Church protecting pedophile priests, but we've seen it time and time again, most notably during World War II.</p>
<p>When the Third Reich came to power in 1933, Hitler signed a treaty with the Vatican that essentially caused the Vatican to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of the Nazis in return for the Church's continued existence in the country. It later <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/65889.stm" target="_blank">apologized</a> for not condemning the Holocaust, and I think forgiveness can be given, but that doesn't change what happened. The song lends some lyrics in support of this interpretation: "Wait supporting outright genocide", and the inclusion of shots of the Nazis in the video should make the connection clear.</p>
<p>Christianity, of course, isn't the only religion that has protected or kept silent about its criminals. Following the September 11, 2011, attacks, the Taliban in Afghanistan harbored Osama bin Laden, and there is at least some evidence that portions of the Pakistani military knew about his residence in their country for several years but kept quiet about it. Apart from that, there hasn't exactly been an outpouring of condemnation by the wider Muslim community for other terrorist-related violence.</p>
<p>Once we begin to see that the song and video is about religion's tendency to either directly or indirectly support violence (i.e. the "hysteria" of religion) against people and holy places, the reason for the inclusion of the burning churches in the video is clearer. Far from supporting the burnings, Aiden is criticizing those who would do so, particularly in the name of religion.</p>
<p>If the Christians who are hopping angry right now would only have taken some time to discover the true meaning of "Hysteria," maybe they wouldn't be so quick to label atheists as intolerant. This video has nothing to do with the alleged intolerance of atheism, but everything to do with how, as the late Christopher Hitchens put it, "religion poisons everything."</p>Religious infectiontag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-24:1982180:BlogPost:8718452011-09-24T04:02:40.000ZNataliehttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/Natalie990
<p>Everywhere I turn, everywhere I go people are talking about god. Even my family is plagued by this nonsense. I use to live in California, and I've never had a problem wiht people praying before meals for the occasional "Bless you" because...It was occasional! Ever since I moved to Minnesota I hear and see it everywhere. My sister in-law, who I thought for a long time was a very nice woman now quotes verses on Facebook, and snidely states "I didn't come from a monkey". Which at first made me…</p>
<p>Everywhere I turn, everywhere I go people are talking about god. Even my family is plagued by this nonsense. I use to live in California, and I've never had a problem wiht people praying before meals for the occasional "Bless you" because...It was occasional! Ever since I moved to Minnesota I hear and see it everywhere. My sister in-law, who I thought for a long time was a very nice woman now quotes verses on Facebook, and snidely states "I didn't come from a monkey". Which at first made me what to laugh because of how it was so incorrectly stated. Of course she didn't, I've met her human mother, but she takes this to a whole new level. Just today she posted on facebook that some one told her son that dragons didn't exist and she held a bible study with him and told him said person was wrong. Said person was me, and she new it was me. <br/><br/> I had been watching her four kids at the park digging in the sand. I told them if they dug deep enough maybe we'd find dinosaur bones. I was just trying to stimulate imagination. So being like kids are the oldest had a know it all moment and said "My mom say's god took them away, but there are dragons still" Without even batting an eye I said "What? no, dragons aren't real." I regretted it right form the start but not for and religious reason. I regretted it because I felt like I had just told a kid Santa wasn't real. But the boy persisted it telling me it's in the bible and his mother say's the bibles real. I dropped it. <br/>But here we are over a week later and it's rearing it ugly head on facebook, even my in laws are in on it.<br/>It's ridiculous. <br/><br/>I live with my husbands uncle who is a pastor, but he surprisingly is much easier to talk to about these things. He even defended evolution on our church camp out. He's not persistent on pushing he's belief or feeling offended by something I've said that may be contrary of that belief. <br/><br/>I can't even make friends in this new land because everyone feels it necessary to talk god. I can go through one social interaction with out a "praise lord" "Isn't god good" etc. Which normally I can let roll off my shoulder, but these people want a response, the best I can give is a rolling of the eyes. A house mate walked into the room while I was watching Tv and someone said Hell, and this woman had a small heart attack, gasping and saying "oh, noo, shame on him, yammer yammer yammer" I was getting irritated with her talking over my show so I said "How old are you again?" It made my point, but I'm slowly growing tension with everyone and that's not good.<br/><br/>It's not just house guess and family, it's even the locals. It's a really small town and you run into friends of friends or people you live with! I can get away! I just don't' know what to do I feel like I'm loosing my sanity. <br/><br/>I've only been away from California for three weeks and people are judging me! People back home think I'm acting silly, but they don't understand. I feel like this is one of those build ups, The straw that broke the camels back sort of deal.</p>
<p>Feel free to comment your thoughts from either side.</p>How Would You Answer This?tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-09-16:1982180:BlogPost:8531042011-09-16T04:21:06.000ZNathan Hevenstonehttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/NathanHevenstone
<blockquote><p><span class="commentBody">Ok, that sounds good. Thanks for the discussion so far. But real quick, may I ask you this question: What is the inverse of the statement "I don't believe in God?" Seems there should be an inversely logical conclusion. "I don't believe in God; therefore, inversely, I do believe there is no god." I don't believe x; therefore, I believe in the opposite of x. It sounds like a mathematical equation because it is.</span></p>
<p> …</p>
</blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote><p><span class="commentBody">Ok, that sounds good. Thanks for the discussion so far. But real quick, may I ask you this question: What is the inverse of the statement "I don't believe in God?" Seems there should be an inversely logical conclusion. "I don't believe in God; therefore, inversely, I do believe there is no god." I don't believe x; therefore, I believe in the opposite of x. It sounds like a mathematical equation because it is.</span></p>
<p> </p>
</blockquote>
<p><span class="commentBody">From here:</span></p>
<p><span class="commentBody"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NateHevens/posts/705640853622" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/NateHevens/posts/705640853622</a><br/></span></p>Secularization Religiosity and Doctrinetag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-08-06:1982180:BlogPost:7633152011-08-06T21:00:00.000ZBrian Bridsonhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/BrianBridson
<p>Good afternoon everyone! I hope you’re all having a great day. Despite a rather shaky start to the day, everything is now going well and I just read a great article in<a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/index.html" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="The Vancouver Sun">The Vancouver Sun</a>, titled …</p>
<p>Good afternoon everyone! I hope you’re all having a great day. Despite a rather shaky start to the day, everything is now going well and I just read a great article in<a class="zem_slink" title="The Vancouver Sun" href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/index.html" rel="homepage" target="_blank">The Vancouver Sun</a>, titled <a title="Secularization the best thing for religion" href="http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Secularization+best+thing+religion/5216473/story.html" target="_blank">Secularization the best thing for religion</a> by <a class="zem_slink" title="Douglas Todd" href="http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/default.aspx" rel="homepage" target="_blank">Douglas Todd</a>. In this article, Todd examines the writing of contemporary philosophers <a class="zem_slink" title="Charles Taylor" href="http://answers.com/topic/myron-charles-taylor#Gale_Contemporary_Black_Biography_d" rel="answerscom" target="_blank">Charles Taylor</a> and John Cobb, and focuses on the concept of secularization in relationship to religion and religiosity.</p>
<p>According to Todd, the process of secularization began during the <a class="zem_slink" title="Axial Age" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Axial Age</a> (around 500 years before the supposed <a class="zem_slink" title="Nativity of Jesus" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativity_of_Jesus" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">birth of Jesus</a>), when “Early <a class="zem_slink" title="Judaism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Judaism</a>, <a class="zem_slink" title="Buddhism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Buddhism</a>and <a class="zem_slink" title="Ancient Greek philosophy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_philosophy" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Greek philosophy</a> challenged the religious authorities of their day, condemning hypocrisy and superstition.” Todd also discusses how the heroes of the bible tended to challenge accepted norms; challenging authority and tradition. Even the genesis of judaism or the <a class="zem_slink" title="Epistle to the Hebrews" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Hebrews" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Hebrews</a>, was marked by a process of rejecting a polytheistic worldview and adopting a monotheistic worldview: an exceptional over through of established tradition.</p>
<p>What secularization allowed was a vibrant process of reevaluating our preconceptions and established norms. At this time, Todd seems to associate the process of secularization with the religious and spiritual impulses. Discussing secularization, religion and spirituality in the context of Taylor, writes:</p>
<p><em>The spiritual and religious impulse in humans will never die, says Taylor. Even if religion doesn’t dominate a society, as it once unfortunately did in Europe and elsewhere, people will always seek the transcendent; something ultimate, larger than themselves.</em><span id="more-481"> </span></p>
<p>What we see here is that, at a very pure or theoretical level, secularization, religiosity and spirituality are all more or less similarly oriented: each is concerned with enhancing our shared understanding of the world, although the language or points of reference employed differ to various degrees. Where religiosity started to differ largely from secularization was when it became too doctrinaire. Todd, considering the writings of Cobb, writes:</p>
<p><em>However, reforming movements often develop followers. And they can frequently turn a positive secularizing trend into a static religion or ideology, which tries to create divisions between “us” and “them.”</em></p>
<p><em>The early <a class="zem_slink" title="Jesus movement" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_movement" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Jesus movement</a> was highly critical of Jewish leaders’ strict adherence to religious laws. Later, however, Cobb says, much of the Jesus movement turned into what he calls “Christianism.”</em></p>
<p>And the Medieval Period, in Todd’s eyes, seems marked by a profound stagnation within the secularization movement, and it was not until the <a class="zem_slink" title="Protestant Reformation" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank">Protestant Reformation</a>, in his opinion, that religiosity fell back in line with it’s initial process of secularization. A reason why science was so slow to progress during this period was, of course, the relentless clutch religious organizations like the catholic church held over social and academic life. But with the Protestant Reformation, religious authority was once again being challenged, and the grip it held on secularism and scientific progress was weakened.</p>
<p>Todd actually supports a redefinition of secularization such that it will refer to this process of religious authority being challenged or lessened. He states:</p>
<p><em>A growing collection of philosophers and theologians, including Canada’s Charles Taylor, author of <a class="zem_slink" title="A Secular Age" href="http://www.amazon.com/Secular-Age-Charles-Taylor/dp/0674026764%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dphilshaze-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0674026764" rel="amazon" target="_blank">A Secular Age</a>, maintain we have to move beyond understanding secularization merely as a process of “subtraction,” “loss” and “disenchantment.”</em></p>
<p><em>I support such thinkers’ efforts to re-define secularization – as a social development by which religion loses its state-sanctioned authority and moral absolutism (as the Catholic Church once functioned in Europe and Quebec). Secularization is creating societies in which religion is treated as one option among many.</em></p>
<p><em>The word “secular” now has as many different meanings as “love” and “spirituality.”</em></p>
<p>Thus, Todd encourages us to see secularization as helping our religious and spiritual understandings to remain honest and accurately reflect what is known about the world: in short, secularization helps keeps doctrine out of religion.</p>
<p>And to be completely honest, I support this understanding of secularization. As an atheist, I don’t care if people are religious or spiritual – I really don’t. What I care about is when these non-reflective, indoctrinated individuals expect special political and financial considerations, and when they expect others to respect these positions. I do hope though, that by engaging with and speaking with other people, that they can come to at least start asking questions about who they are and what it means to exist and what the fuck is metaphysics. It would be nice if the secular and scientific fields could be considered a valid sort of litmus test for sniffing out poor ideologies and indoctrinated mindsets.</p>
<p> </p>Atheism & Rational Belieftag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-07-12:1982180:BlogPost:7391312011-07-12T03:45:47.000ZAKICKTOTHEEYEhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/AKICKTOTHEEYE
<p><span class="font-size-4"> I consider myself a Humanist. Atheism makes reference to what I lack belief in while Humanism makes reference to what I do believe. As a Humanist I believe in that which is beneficial to the quality of life of humans.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4">I’m somewhat new to Think Atheist and would like to know:</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4">As an atheist, what are the things that you do believe in?</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"> I consider myself a Humanist. Atheism makes reference to what I lack belief in while Humanism makes reference to what I do believe. As a Humanist I believe in that which is beneficial to the quality of life of humans.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4">I’m somewhat new to Think Atheist and would like to know:</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-4">As an atheist, what are the things that you do believe in?</span></p>Is it worth our time trying to reason with the emotionally minded people that are religious?tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-06-09:1982180:BlogPost:6974932011-06-09T16:21:14.000ZHeather Hendersonhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/HeatherHenderson
<div class="mbl notesBlogText clearfix"><div><p>By Philip Sober</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I'm an atheist and have been out spoken about it and heard all the nonsense regarding that fact by the religious, such as, I'm a fundie atheist or atheism is my religion, etc... but lately I've questioned my own tactics. What i mean by that is this, as an atheist, I'm also fairly scientific minded, for an uneducated layman that is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I've come to the rational belief, in the philosophy of…</p>
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<div class="mbl notesBlogText clearfix"><div><p>By Philip Sober</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I'm an atheist and have been out spoken about it and heard all the nonsense regarding that fact by the religious, such as, I'm a fundie atheist or atheism is my religion, etc... but lately I've questioned my own tactics. What i mean by that is this, as an atheist, I'm also fairly scientific minded, for an uneducated layman that is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I've come to the rational belief, in the philosophy of bio/environmental determinism. Now with this belief system I've come to the hypothesis that perhaps there are two types of thinkers, ones that are biologically determined by brain matter, logically minded and the emotionally minded. And that while there are some logically minded people that have been brought up in religion (myself included) they generally find there way to a more rational view of life.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class=" fbUnderline"><strong>Is it worth our time trying to reason with the emotionally minded people that are religious?</strong></span> We find it frustrating beyond belief trying to understand why anyone would believe in such Woo Who Bullshit and in the same way they will never be able to follow the rational, logical road to atheism. Their brains are biologically incapable of working in the mind set of reason and logic to such a degree that is necessary to follow such a path as their emotional part of their brain keeps canceling out that rational path.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I'm not saying they are incapable of all reason, just not to the ability that say "we" are. That being the reason it is that most of the scientific community and higher educated people are atheistic or non-religious. It's not that education causes the lack of belief but that the brain function of these people that leads them to more rationally minded fields, is also the same that leads one to atheism.</p>
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</div>I believed weird thingstag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-05-29:1982180:BlogPost:6825202011-05-29T23:43:15.000ZMartin Pribblehttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/MartinPribble
Humans can believe some pretty strange things. I have met people who claim to be able to see my "aura", and that depending on the "colour and shape" of this aura, they can make a determination of my physical or mental health. I've met others (actually sometimes the same people) who claim that by laying their hands on me, they can cure me of whatever ails me, from sore muscles to an upset stomach. Even stranger, I have met people who claim to be able to see into my future by "interpreting the…
Humans can believe some pretty strange things. I have met people who claim to be able to see my "aura", and that depending on the "colour and shape" of this aura, they can make a determination of my physical or mental health. I've met others (actually sometimes the same people) who claim that by laying their hands on me, they can cure me of whatever ails me, from sore muscles to an upset stomach. Even stranger, I have met people who claim to be able to see into my future by "interpreting the cards", using the random placement of tarot cards as a "glimpse into the other side". All of these are bogus of course, and when tested under reasonable scientific conditions, will fail like superstition does.<br />
<br />
What is interesting is that people seem so ready to believe these things. Many who I have met in life that believe these things have no affiliation with organised religion or dogma, instead following "their own path of self discovery". Often times when a person believes in the powers such as crystal gazing, they will also believe a whole gamut of equally implausible things, like those mentioned above, and things like iridology, positive thinking and vision questing. Most people I knew who believed in this stuff have grown out of it, and moved on to become quite rational in thought. Myself included.<br />
<br />
Yep that's right. For a long time I believed in the "great hidden powers" of these things, with the attitude that "there is much more to the world than we will ever see, and much of it is hidden just beyond our sight." Let me explain.<br />
<br />
In my years after high-school and before I began university (this is where I had much of my superstition squeezed out of me) I was on pretty much of a loose end. I was not really sure what I wanted to do with life, and my friends were the same. This life involved a fair bit of pot smoking and introspection, festivals on mudflats in the country, protests against the war in Iraq (the first one) and lots of doing not much except sitting around and sharing ideas. We all have one thing in common, and that was that we believed in the world of supernatural energies, lay-lines and pyramids, past-lives, future lives and shared energies of people like telekinesis and ESP. We walked into these situations of experimentation fully expecting the results to pan out, to give us a peek into the hidden world of the spirit, and of course we were proven "correct". When I say "correct" I mean that we perceived a result. Let me give you an example.<br />
<br />
In a Reiki situation, when a "master" lay hands on me, I expected to become relaxed. He would ask me if I could feel the energy of the universe flowing through me. Of course this made me aware of my body, the blood coursing through my veins, heartbeat, breathing and skin sensations. I was convinced that this was "cosmic energy" and that it was coming from the universe. Not outer-space, the WHOLE universe. I would become relaxed, and any muscle soreness would appear to have gone away, attributed of course to the juju of the universe. On retrospect of course I realise that it was just me becoming self aware and relaxed enough to let my muscles un-knot, and through the guiding "suggestions" of the Reiki "master". They would always speak in soothing tones, light candles and incense (of course giving these trappings more significance than they were due, claiming that they somehow "purify the air" or "remove negative energies".) These situations are conducive to relaxation, so it's no wonder that I was open to suggestions.<br />
<br />
Many of the new-age trappings from the 90s (of course none of it originated then, it all came from shreds of "old mysticism") use these same techniques of relaxation and guided suggestions to make the subject (me) feel something they hadn't noticed before, or rarely notice. A lot of these techniques involve long hours of sensory restriction, sitting still, being silent, meditating and the like. It's funny how things like this can cause the mind to play tricks on us, especially when we have an intended outcome such as a vision or healing or relaxation. There's no denial that experiences were had, but after years of playing around with this stuff I came to realise that it all takes place in the brain.<br />
<br />
When the senses are subjected to stimuli such as this, and combined with a desired outcome, it's easy for us to feel like the outcome is reached. And it makes perfect sense that this should be the case, for if we withdraw inwardly not only is the brain allowed to wander, it will wander, seemingly on it's own, but there is always an intention.<br />
<br />
After five years at university where I read a lot of history, popular science and literature, it became clear to me that while the ability to relax is useful, that's all it is; relaxation. Far from becoming cynical about new-age quackery, I came to understand that it's all as real as a person wants to believe it to be. In the brain anyhow.<br />
<br />
So I find it easier to understand where a person of religious belief is coming from. Religious belief has the added bonus of being foisted upon us from a young age, with most people being indoctrinated as children, and the backing of society which largely says it's not only okay that you believe, in many cases it is expected of you to believe (depending of course upon which system of belief you happen to be born into, all others are claimed to be false).<br />
<br />
I think that anything we call "magic" or "mysticism" can be explained eventually, either by science or by critical examination. I can explain a lot of the new-age stuff I used to believe in so deeply as tricks of the mind brought on by altered states of consciousness, and the rest I can explain away by wishful thinking. The problem lies with the fact that people want to believe in things, people want to believe in souls, afterlife, ghosts, Reiki, crystal healing etc. Why would anyone ever want to dispense with an idea that they want to be true? When the belief promises solutions to the questions life throws up at you, why wouldn't you choose to believe them? Even more powerfully, when the belief offers solutions to the one biggest unknown in life (which is death), and claims to conquer this unknown, you can see how the carrot becomes even more tempting. The notion of confirmation bias backs this idea up.<br />
<br />
But when it comes down to it, none of us are immune to strange beliefs. What are some of yours?Just ask Jesus into your life.tag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-03-22:1982180:BlogPost:5970962011-03-22T03:09:25.000ZDoug Reardonhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/DougReardon
when I was 19, a time much farther back than I had been alive at that time, My one true love became a Jesus freak. She begged me and implored me to "Just ask Jesus to come into your life." And being the lovestruck teenager I was, I did what she asked. I prayed every day for Jesus to come into my life, I carried a bible with me constantly and read it at every opportunity, I joined a pentecostal church, I wore crucifix around my neck that had belonged to a archbishop relative. And, every day…
when I was 19, a time much farther back than I had been alive at that time, My one true love became a Jesus freak. She begged me and implored me to "Just ask Jesus to come into your life." And being the lovestruck teenager I was, I did what she asked. I prayed every day for Jesus to come into my life, I carried a bible with me constantly and read it at every opportunity, I joined a pentecostal church, I wore crucifix around my neck that had belonged to a archbishop relative. And, every day I'd wake up and my first thought would be: "I don't believe this crap!" So, maybe my motives were wrong, but I did everything that Christians said I should do,for six months! Finely I decided that no matter what I did, I Just couldn't make myself believe, that Religion and the supernatural, just didn't make sense. And, I have never regretted losing my first true love.Faithtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2011-01-15:1982180:BlogPost:4974762011-01-15T04:14:14.000ZDoug Reardonhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/DougReardon
<p>"Faith makes all things possible." "For the magic to work, you have to believe in it." "If you Believe, it will Happen." "<b>Those who have faith need no explanation."</b></p>
<p><b> The essence of Mysticism is that one can alter reality by the power of the mind. If you can believe something, without a doubt, then that is reality. There is no "absolute" reality, no one way that the universe is, there is only our belief of what the universe really is. Ergo, to become god like, one…</b></p>
<p>"Faith makes all things possible." "For the magic to work, you have to believe in it." "If you Believe, it will Happen." "<b>Those who have faith need no explanation."</b></p>
<p><b> The essence of Mysticism is that one can alter reality by the power of the mind. If you can believe something, without a doubt, then that is reality. There is no "absolute" reality, no one way that the universe is, there is only our belief of what the universe really is. Ergo, to become god like, one only needs to be able to believe, undeniably, what one wants and it is. </b></p>
<p><b> Maybe this is why FAITH is the intractable foundation of Christianity, for to falter, to doubt is to guarantee that you will not get what you so desperately want to believe. </b></p>Prophecytag:www.thinkatheist.com,2010-11-13:1982180:BlogPost:4203032010-11-13T03:45:04.000ZDoug Reardonhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/DougReardon
My mother was big on prophecy when I was growing up. Jean Dixon was one of her favorites. Jean always extolled the correct prophecies that she had made in the past (JFK's assassination for example) Of course these prophecies were always revealed after the fact. I kept track of Ms. Dixon's prophecies for the future (at that time, all of which are now well past the time predicted) Not one, not a single one of her predictions have ever come true. Not the anti-Christ arising in an Arab nation, born…
My mother was big on prophecy when I was growing up. Jean Dixon was one of her favorites. Jean always extolled the correct prophecies that she had made in the past (JFK's assassination for example) Of course these prophecies were always revealed after the fact. I kept track of Ms. Dixon's prophecies for the future (at that time, all of which are now well past the time predicted) Not one, not a single one of her predictions have ever come true. Not the anti-Christ arising in an Arab nation, born in the early 1960's who would challenge the pope. Not the small missile the US government had developed that would prove essential to his eventual defeat, after millions had died in the wars, etc, etc. And the same is true of every other psychic who makes a specific prediction, they just never happen, of course the general ones, like "A great man will die this year" or "There will be a major natural disaster that will kill thousands. Tend to occur just as they always do. Yet people, and my mother up unto the end, continue to believe in prophecy. Why?Thank God for Allowing Me to Send Another Tweettag:www.thinkatheist.com,2010-11-06:1982180:BlogPost:4139932010-11-06T21:03:47.000ZAmanda Artmanhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/AmandaArtman
Because I have a Twitter and a Facebook and am connected with those who are religious, I constantly see posts that follow this theme: "Thank god for allowing me to see another day."<br></br><br></br>After my initial reaction of a slight chuckle of amusement and I really start to think about the "rationale" behind these posts, I get really annoyed. How arrogant do you have to be to thank god for <span style="font-style: italic;">allowing</span> you to live another day? Like he personally goes through a…
Because I have a Twitter and a Facebook and am connected with those who are religious, I constantly see posts that follow this theme: "Thank god for allowing me to see another day."<br/><br/>After my initial reaction of a slight chuckle of amusement and I really start to think about the "rationale" behind these posts, I get really annoyed. How arrogant do you have to be to thank god for <span style="font-style: italic;">allowing</span> you to live another day? Like he personally goes through a checklist of all the people in the world and picks who gets to wake up every morning and, hallelujah, he picked you! To me this thinking just seems absurd--condescension disguised as awe.<br/><br/>Is this just another example of the audacity that comes with religion, or are people truly servile to the belief that an invisible man in the sky controls every trivial aspect of their day-to-day lives, for which they should be grateful that he would simply let them live? On second thought, I think a better question would be HOW do people believe this is true? Because, obviously, they do believe it.<br/><br/><br/>How and why a theist friend of mine believes what she doestag:www.thinkatheist.com,2010-11-05:1982180:BlogPost:4122552010-11-05T00:00:00.000Zluvtheheavenhttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/luvtheheaven
So... this is Elena's life story. Lol. Or so she says. Spanish is her native language so some of it is hard to understand because her English isn't quite perfect. We're online friends, we talk on twitter and on YouTube... we're both fanvideo makers which is how we "met". Natalia is my online friend and Elena's online friend too, all 3 of us are friends... ;) Natalia just posted this fanvideo, which had to do with atheism, last night:…
So... this is Elena's life story. Lol. Or so she says. Spanish is her native language so some of it is hard to understand because her English isn't quite perfect. We're online friends, we talk on twitter and on YouTube... we're both fanvideo makers which is how we "met". Natalia is my online friend and Elena's online friend too, all 3 of us are friends... ;) Natalia just posted this fanvideo, which had to do with atheism, last night: <a href="http://www.thinkatheist.com/video/all-these-people-think-they">http://www.thinkatheist.com/video/all-these-people-think-they</a><br/>And right before she posted it, Natalia mentioned via twitter that she was nervous. She was rendering it (saving it as a .wmv file like most of us who use Sony Vegas) and tweeted that she was rendering her new video, it was really short. People started asking her what it was about, so then Natalia said: "<span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">A video. That I'm not saying anything about until it's up. But people are probably gonna hate me for it.</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">But it's exactly how I feel, so i don't care." And "</span></span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">well it's on a really touchy subject that most people don't agree with me about." Then Elena said: "</span></span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">mmmmm.. lol. *being curious* Let's see. lol"</span></span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content"><br/>so Natalia replied: "</span></span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">well, it's almost done rendering. so you can wait. lol. I mean, I know for a fact you don't agree. :/</span></span></span>"<br/>Let me write out the rest of the twitter conversation I was stalking (which is what you're supposed to do on twitter, lol. It's totally the norm to do what I was doing...)<br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Natalia:</span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">here's my video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgrZs2gW4PQ" class="tweet-url web" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgrZs2gW4PQ</a> DON'T KILL ME *hides*<br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Elena:</span></span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">Don't hide sweetie! lol. Just saw it! you were right, I don't agree. Thru life I've learned to respect everyone's opinion :)</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">you're still a great friend to me! ;D lol. *SuperHugsU*</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">will I be getting to deep if I ask you why you don't believe? lol.</span></span></span><br/><span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Natalia:</span></span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">Thank you. Most of my twitter friends do have respect, but a lot of people I meet in real life don't. :( And it's not</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">too deep. I was raised Christian, and being in that environment, you kind of get it forced on you and so I would tell</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">myself that I believed, but I never actually did. It just never felt real to me. &amp; for so long I pretended and went along</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">with it, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't like it and didn't want any part in it.<br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Elena:</span></span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">Well,
I was raised christian too! At some point I saw it pointless, because<br/>
it wasn't real to me, I stopped going to church &amp;</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">stuffs<br/>
like that, but two years ago, I came along! &amp; it make sense to me,<br/>
because I've felt God in my live, but I totally</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">respect you, I'll never shove my beliefs on you because I won't change ur mind! so all I have left is to respect you at ALL, cuz</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">I mean come one, you're a friend, and I don't want to lose a friend for different opinions.</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">yeah I know. A lot of ppl stop being friends and have big problems for that, but I'm not like that :)<br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Natalia:</span></span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">well, I don't see how it makes sense, but that's not all. The way I always saw it was if there is a God, He's never been</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">there
for me. Looking back at my life, nothing majorly great has happened,<br/>
but a lot of really terrible things are. &amp; when</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">I was trying to believe, I was miserable. Now that I'm not, I'm much freer and happier. But I'm glad it doesn't change</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">things. You'd seriously be surprised how it does change things sometimes! *hugs back*</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">well thank you =)<br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Elena:</span></span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">:) lol. no problem! what you doing now?<br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Natalia:</span></span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">Just watching videos on youtube :)</span></span></span><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>So then I messaged Elena on YouTube. I asked her to elaborate on the whole "<span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">Well,
I was raised christian too! At some point I saw it pointless, because<br/>
it wasn't real to me, I stopped going to church &amp;</span></span></span> <span class="status-body"><span class="status-content"><span class="entry-content">stuffs<br/>
like that, but two years ago, I came along! " part of her twitter conversation. I'm a loud and proud atheist on twitter but I was curious if that meant that she was really an atheist or agnostic or deistic or something at some point, lol... I wanted to know her explanation for what she believed then, and justification for her own current belief system. I told her I knew she never claimed to be an atheist. <br/><br/><br/>This is what she sent me back, and I'm working on my reply now. I have SO much to say, it's hard to even know where to start. But I'd love comments from you guys on what she has to say too.<br/>I might add my own comments (below on this page) at some point too at the parts of this that specifically stuck out to me.<br/><br/>But yeah, here's her message:<br/><br/><br/></span></span></span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">Hey, lol. Well as you said I never claimed to be an atheist and I guess I wasn't at all.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">As I said on my tweet I was raised Christian, but there was a point that as cocoaluvs I was doing it because that's what I've been taught to do, not because it meant SOMETHING to me, so at that point it was pointless. So I just stopped going thru the motions and stopped going to church or doing any kinda Christian thing. I can't say I didn't believe at all, because I've always known there's a God, just that at that moment I wasn't paying attention to him.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">I started disliking church because it was bored, and I didn't see any point on going, sitting, listening to people talking of a God that I didn't know.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">I was that way until I turned 16, when I turned 16 my mom invited me to church because she was going to be part of some sort of a play, so I didn't want to go, but she convinced me,lol.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">That play was about a biblical story (of course xD) here's the link, xD:</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A1-13&amp;version=NIV">http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A1-13&amp;version=NIV</a></span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">Well at first I gotta be totally honest with you, I got scared, because I didn't want to end up like the five whose where foolish (this mind sound dumb, I know lol), so I tried to see a point of going to church and to follow everything that I was raised with, because I was feeling totally empty. There were days that I felt bad, and I just went to church as it was medicine, to make me feel better (which was good at some point, but at other was kinda stupid).</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">So after the day I saw my mom in the play, I came along, and got myself involved in all that. I gotta say that at first I was doing it, with the same ''vision'' I had when I was a little girl, just to be part of something. Then my family got into weird situations:</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">1.My dad cheated on my mom and had another child, that was so heartbreaking to me, and I started doubting about God's presence in my life, because everything was so confusing and just imagine my dad saying right to my face ''Yes, I have another women and another daughter''. (too much for me to handle) After all that my mother left us for about 3 months.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">2.My sister turned lesbian. (which was a shame for me) I felt so bad, I stopped talking to her, hanging out with her and seeing her as my big sissy, because with or without a Christian belief I have always seem homosexuality as a weird thing lol. (it's disgusting).</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">(I hope you're totally straight, xD so I'm not offending you :D)</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">So I started praying, because I was seeing that my whole life was falling apart with no reason, and that I was feeling even emptier with every little thing that happened around, I got answers for both of the situations:</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">1. Sadly, my dad will always be my dad and I can't do anything to change him. He's human what means he makes mistakes.As I believe there's a God, there's an evil,too. It's not like my dad wasn't guilty of what he did, because I was DAMN sure he was. I went to a church activity(in the countryside) and there was a moment when the leader told us to go to a certain place, where we could feel comfortable to pray and to tell God our problems. I presented him the hate I had for my dad on my heart, and somehow I started crying and singing OUT LOUD lol (weird) a worship song (this one <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjsoa7Mnq7w">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjsoa7Mnq7w</a>) and I felt that God was really letting rain on my life, and that I started feeling a cleaned heart, that the gates of heaven where being REALLY open for me to get in. After that I forgave my dad. I guess I told you before we all live in the same house still (weird), my mom forgave him too, and NO they are not back together, they're friends. lol.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">2. I really don't know if my sister changed. But I opened my heart to her, because if God loves her who am I to reject her. I don't go along with the lesbian thing, but she's my sister and I cannot change that, even if I wanted to.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">The other day, I got into a fight with my brother who is a rebel lol. &amp; my sister defended me, and they got into a big argument, my mom was in the middle, trying to handle the situation, but they were not paying attention to her &amp; she got a crisis lol, I really don't know what it was but that's how I call it. xD She was crying, yelling senseless things, that we don't love her , that she didn't want to live anymore, that what was the thing she did to deserve a life like this and that sort of stuffs, I was PISSED, so I went to my room and prayed (yes here I go again lol), because I felt that all the big argument was my fault.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">I told God that I didn't know why this sort of things happen to my life, that I didn't understand anything, but that I was totally sick of that situation, that I was tired of the devil playing around with my life and messing up with my family. I also told him that I wanted his help and that I wanted it in that exact moment, making my mom feel calm. I got tired because my mom was still crying, and being weird.I thought that the next day she wouldn't be home and that she was going to leave me again.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">I stopped praying and started tweeting with cocoaluvs talking about how miserable life can be sometimes. Suddenly my mom stopped crying, and my sister went to my room to tell me my mom was okay, Emily that was amazing, when I went to my mother's room she was CALM at all, and started joking with me &amp; my sister, my brother left home that day at 2:00 AM in the morning, I was begging him to stay, but he refused and just left.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">After my mom was fine, we called him and he came back and we all slept tight. lol.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">The day after, I woke up feeling weird, because my house was like a peace zone, xD nobody was even talking, yelling or whatever, it was too good to be true, so I thanked God because he just didn't do what I asked him to, he did even MORE.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">Well, and in a lot of different situations I've felt him in my life. After that weird day with my mom, brother &amp; sister I got to understand that life is hard, but that God never said life would be easy, but what he surely did, was to promise us he'll take care of us, and I'm a true believer he had done it. Check this song: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9_caMq_iYc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9_caMq_iYc</a></span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">I know that maybe your life hasn't been the way you wanted to, because mine hasn't either, but I'm sure there's at least one good thing that can make you see there's a God is your life. Do you want a bigger proof that how AWESOME your dad is? I've read all your tweets about your dad and you LOVE him, do you think the big bang made a man like him? Sorry but I don't. Those little awesome things we have in our lives are the biggest proof there's a God looking out for us. All we have to do is to look back at him, because he's just waiting for us.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">Just like this story: <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+15%3A11-32&amp;version=NIV">http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+15%3A11-32&amp;version=NIV</a></span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">But anyway :) I hope I didn't bore you with my life story! XD</span><br style="font-style: italic;"/><span style="font-style: italic;">Waiting for your answer *hugs*</span>Atheism vs. Agnosticismtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2010-09-23:1982180:BlogPost:3682332010-09-23T17:30:00.000ZYet Another Atheisthttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/YetAnotherAtheist
<div>I know, I know. The title is a bit misleading.</div>
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<div>But lately, I've been seeing a growing trend of digging an imaginary trench between so-called atheists and so-called agnostics. What many people don't realize is that more often than not, they are one and the same.</div>
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<div>We need to define both terms first. Theism and atheism are about belief vs. non-belief. Non-belief in a deity does <em>not</em> imply a belief in the non-existence of said…</div>
<div>I know, I know. The title is a bit misleading.</div>
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<div>But lately, I've been seeing a growing trend of digging an imaginary trench between so-called atheists and so-called agnostics. What many people don't realize is that more often than not, they are one and the same.</div>
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<div>We need to define both terms first. Theism and atheism are about belief vs. non-belief. Non-belief in a deity does <em>not</em> imply a belief in the non-existence of said deity. Atheism is a response to the claim, "There is a god." If you accept and agree with that claim, you are a theist. Anything else means you're an atheist. Whether you simply refuse to believe in a deity, or actively believe no such deity exists, you are an atheist.</div>
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<div>Gnosticism and agnosticism refer to knowledge. If you know for certain one way or the other, you are gnostic. If you don't claim to know, and make no assertion whatsoever, you are an agnostic.</div>
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<div><img style="float: left; margin: 0 10px 10px 0;" title="Gnosticism vs. Theism" src="http://i.imgur.com/F01Uj.jpg" alt="Diagram showing interconnecting ideals of gnosticism and theism" width="400" height="400"/>Think of [a]theism and [a]gnosticism as two axes on a two-dimensional chart. The X axis would be gnosticism (0 for agnostic, 1 for gnostic), and the Y axis would be theism (0 for atheistic, 1 for theistic). Based on these two interconnecting terms, people generally fall into any one of four categories, as shown to the right.</div>
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<div>Let's say there's a seemingly empty box in the middle of a room. A theist comes up and says, "There is an object in this box. We cannot perceive it with our senses, but I believe it to be there." An atheist would respond with, "I don't believe your claim." An <strong>agnostic atheist</strong> would respond, "I don't believe your claim, but I can't say for certain that the box is completely devoid of such an object." A <strong>gnostic atheist</strong>, on the other hand, would respond, "I don't believe your claim. In fact, I'm certain there is nothing in that box anywhere close to what you claim."</div>
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<div>Some might say that gnostic atheism is a foolish position: that without any evidence of your own, you shouldn't make the assertion that no gods exist. On the other hand, I think it is a rather logical conclusion that one can make from the lack of evidence for a god — that because it is impossible to show evidence of a god whose properties we do not or cannot know, it is therefore logical to conclude that no such god exists.</div>
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<div>With the release of Stephen Hawking's newest book, <em>The Grand Design</em>, it is even more logical to come to a gnostic conclusion of the non-existence of a god. In this book, Hawking goes into detail about his conclusion that a god is not required for the Big Bang theory, or for the universe as a whole to have come into existence. Perhaps Hawking could be described as a gnostic atheist; if so, is it really that foolish a position to have?</div>
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<div>Some claim that "belief/non-belief" is a false dichotomy, but this is not so. You either believe a claim, or you don't. If I told you that I had magical powers and could fly, but could only do it when I was alone, would you believe that claim? If you trust that I am telling you the truth and believe what I'm saying, that's one position. The other position is that you do not believe me. That position itself is divided into two possibilities: you don't believe me, but can't say for sure that I'm lying; or you don't believe me, and claim that I'm a liar and have no such abilities whatsoever. Since it has never been demonstrated that a human being can fly without external aide, one can safely claim to know that I am lying.</div>
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<div>Another way to put it is that the claim, "God exists," has two possible states: <strong>true</strong> and <strong>not true</strong>. "Not true" is <em>not</em> the same thing as "false", however. Take, for instance, the statement, "This statement is false." Is that statement true or false? It is neither, because it is a paradoxical statement. However, you cannot say that the statement is <em>true</em>. Therefore, it is <em>not true</em>. Under the "not true" category, there's "false", "paradox", "self-contradicting", and other answers that are anything other than "true".</div>
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<div>Therefore, atheism is not about labeling the "God exists" claim as <strong>false</strong>, but about labeling it as <strong>not true</strong>. Gnostic atheists go a step further and label it <strong>false</strong>, while agnostic atheists simply say it is <strong>not true</strong>, or <strong>unfalsifiable</strong>, a sort of limbo state where the claim is not true, but cannot be proven to be false.</div>
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<div>It's a lot for some people to wrap their head around, but this is essentially what [a]theism and [a]gnosticism are all about.</div>
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<div>This post is also available on my blog here: <a href="http://yetanotheratheist.net/2010/09/atheism-vs-agnosticism/">http://yetanotheratheist.net/2010/09/atheism-vs-agnosticism/</a>.</div>Arrogance, Belief, Agnosticismtag:www.thinkatheist.com,2010-07-18:1982180:BlogPost:3137712010-07-18T22:30:00.000ZHenry Ruddlehttp://www.thinkatheist.com/profile/HenryRuddle
Ever since Richard Dawkins gave us his 7-point scale of God belief in The God Delusion, and positioned himself just shy of the strong atheist position, I have sensed a sort of orthodoxy develop around the defense to the accusations that atheists are arrogant and rely on faith just as much as believers. The common reply has been to cry foul ("atheism is merely a lack of belief in gods") and retreat into agnosticism ("I can't know with certainty there are no gods, I just find it highly…
Ever since Richard Dawkins gave us his 7-point scale of God belief in The God Delusion, and positioned himself just shy of the strong atheist position, I have sensed a sort of orthodoxy develop around the defense to the accusations that atheists are arrogant and rely on faith just as much as believers. The common reply has been to cry foul ("atheism is merely a lack of belief in gods") and retreat into agnosticism ("I can't know with certainty there are no gods, I just find it highly improbable"). Perhaps this chicken patootie defensive response has been around a lot longer, but my impression is that it has become much more common recently.<br/><br/>There might be some social benefit to allowing believers to take over the conversation, since offending people can sometimes destroy relationships or even cause violence. Also, most people consider themselves good and want to be seen that way by others, so being called arrogant and irrational is bound to provoke a response (especially since -- at least in my experience -- most atheists pride themselves on being open minded, self-deprecating and uber-rational) <br/><br/>However, as believers with any understanding of their own theology will tell you, agnosticism is a form of atheism because belief requires a leap of faith. (That is, you can split hairs all you want over "belief" versus "knowledge," but being a theist requires action, so whether you answer "no" or pretend you didn't hear the question, the result it the same.) To me it seems that agnostics want to have it both ways, and like roulette players who bet on both black and red at the same time, are wasting their own and others' time. <br/><br/>I'm amused when those who defend agnosticism try to ignore the fact that nobody would give a feather or fig about it if we did not live in a world in which god belief is the default position. An agnostic will say, "I also don't know for certain if Santa Claus or leprechauns exist." Yes, you do. If an adult told you he believes in an actual Santa Claus who lives at the North Pole, etc., real leprechauns hiding gold at the ends of rainbows, you would have no trouble diagnosing him as insane. There might be a small, lonely teenager part of your brain that can't get enough mental masturbation and therefore obsesses over the possibility that maybe in some fashion there might be some sliver of a possibility that Mr. Barking Lunatic is actually correct, but the mature part of your brain would throw the door open and tell it to knock it off. <br/><br/>Isn't the whole point of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Bertrand Russell's teapots to make us see that belief in God or gods is a mental illness? I see no justification to allowing for the possibility of gods, or invisible pink unicorns, or talking snowmen. <br/><br/>My answers to the accusations are to point out that believing you are right is not the same thing as being arrogant. If that were true, everyone with a point of view would be arrogant and the word would have no meaning. I'm careful not to tell you what to believe or to claim that I am superior to you because of it, so in no sense could my atheism be considered arrogant. <br/><br/>Regarding the "faith" that atheists supposedly have, I say that it's due to one of the unfortunate limitations of the language -- like the way "right" is the opposite both of "left" and of "wrong." Atheists have faith in evidence and rational thinking because they work. Sure, the scientific method leads to the wrong conclusions sometimes, but that's a result of poor evidence or poor reasoning, not the method itself. The faith of believers comes in spite of evidence, and with plenty of irrational thinking. Although you can use the word faith in both cases, they are truly opposites. <br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>